Huffington Post
The Jibaozhai Museum in Jizhou, China closed amid internet ridicule because nearly all its 40,000 artifacts are alleged to be forgeries. One online satirist suggested it should reopen as a museum of fakes.
The museum has 12 vast exhibition halls and cost 60 million yuan (about $9.8 million) to build, opening its doors in 2010. China is currently in the midst of an unprecedented museum boom with nearly 400 new museums opening in 2011 alone, according to government figures. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fill that many museums, and China also has a prolific faking industry.
Some Jizhou residents have accused the museum’s curator, local party chief Wang Zongquan, of misappropriating the funds and covering it up with cheap counterfeits.
“Most of the historic relics are fake, but the real ones are in Wang’s home,” resident Liu Xin-liang told Global Times.
Shao Baoming, the museum’s deputy curator, told Shanghai Daily that half of the artifacts in the museum were real. Even if that was true, the museum would still contain around 20,000 counterfeit items.
For his part, Wang claimed that “even the gods cannot tell whether the exhibits are fake or not.”
The Jibaozhai Museum in Jizhou, China closed amid internet ridicule because nearly all its 40,000 artifacts are alleged to be forgeries. One online satirist suggested it should reopen as a museum of fakes.
The museum has 12 vast exhibition halls and cost 60 million yuan (about $9.8 million) to build, opening its doors in 2010. China is currently in the midst of an unprecedented museum boom with nearly 400 new museums opening in 2011 alone, according to government figures. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fill that many museums, and China also has a prolific faking industry.
Some Jizhou residents have accused the museum’s curator, local party chief Wang Zongquan, of misappropriating the funds and covering it up with cheap counterfeits.
“Most of the historic relics are fake, but the real ones are in Wang’s home,” resident Liu Xin-liang told Global Times.
Shao Baoming, the museum’s deputy curator, told Shanghai Daily that half of the artifacts in the museum were real. Even if that was true, the museum would still contain around 20,000 counterfeit items.
For his part, Wang claimed that “even the gods cannot tell whether the exhibits are fake or not.”
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